Help resolving a boot-installation problem?

[claydoh]

Before we solve my booting problem, I'd like to know why I can't partition a flash drive & put a Live OS &/or repair utilities in different partitions and data in others. This question derives from the very high capacity modern flash drives. Thanks.

You can, but it depends on the method used to create the iso, and/or the type of OS image the iso actually contains.

The Ubuntu ISO contains the installer, plus a compressed, read-only image of the OS used for both the live session, and to be copied to disk, to which user accounts and some other things are created for. The ISO is still designed to be able to be used via burning to a DVD drive, so is often referred to as a 'hybrid' iso.

Some tools can create a 'persistence' file system that can save some settings and installed applications run in the live session.
Mkusb, Unetbootin and maybe some others in Linux have such options. I think Etcher formats the empty space, so it is at least potentially usable as storage
Rufus in Windows offers persistence options

of course, after the USB creation, one can go in and format the leftover space on the USB with whatever tools.

[RLynwood]

I'm not familiar with Mkusb, Unetbootin, or other independent (?) partitioning tools. I expect to use KDE Partition Editor, GParted, or Mint's Disks, all from within Kubuntu, unless I learn that there are better such utilities. Which of the distro.-based utilities I just mentioned do you prefer and why? And do you have a hierarchy of preferred Linux related boot repair utilities?
Oh, and I suppose that, if I were going to treat a flash drive as another partitioned drive, I'd have to put a swap file in it, wouldn't I?

[RLynwood]

I'm back with a question about this. I want to install, fully install, Kubuntu 22.04 on my largest flash drive and started to do so. But I reached a screen than showed an image of one of my hard drives at the top but lower gave a combo box with the flash drive as a choice. When I selected the flash drive, it displayed a graphic of it in that box but didn't change the hdd graphic at the top. I stopped there because I didn't want to take the chance of messing up any hdd. The wording attending the top graphic (for the hdd) said:
"You have selected an entire device to partition. If you proceed with creating a new partition table on the device, then all current partitions will be removed."
But the wording attending the combo-box drive selection down below said:
"Note that you will be able to undo this operation later if you wish,"
Which is it: Is it a permanent change that will wipe out anything on whatever hdd is identified in the top field, or can I proceed with the stick installation allowing for reversing it later?

[RLynwood]

Hope someone catches my update and gets back to this. I sure need the help. Thanks.

[Schwarzer Kater]

Hello RLynwood,

Would it be possible to sometimes post a photo/screenshot of the situation you have questions about?
Speaking of me as a non-native speaker of English it is sometimes hard to picture what you are facing if it is something more complex …

Best wishes!

[RLynwood]

Thank you for helping. I don't think I can get a screenshot of a page/step of the installation process, but I'll check. I probably won't get to it 'till tomorrow, late morning. I'll see what I can do.